At the end of "In His Feathers," Sharon's own final remark – typical of her – ascribes goodness and faithfulness to her maker. "God is gracious," she wrote. "He has sustained me through cancer." And although I confess I was weeping as I closed the book, I do not think of this account of her life, ultimately, as a sad story.

A popular song recorded by country singer Tim McGraw features an unnamed "narrator" who explains how he faced the revelation of his own terminal illness, confronting the awful news of his mortality by going skydiving, "rocky mountain climbing," bull riding, and taking on other new experiences.

As the song continues, the storyteller goes on to say that, as a result of his imminent death, his life changed, such that he "loved deeper," "spoke sweeter," and gave forgiveness he'd "been denyin'." Then, slowing to linger over the last words of the chorus, the singer ends with a memorable hook:  "And he said, someday I hope you get the chance to live like you were dyin'. ..."

That last line of the song, like the first line of "Love Story," comes back to me as I reflect on Sharon Bomgaars' life and death. What can you say about the woman whose story is told in the pages of "In His Feathers"? I would say she was someone who lived a beautiful life of faith and selflessness. And she is someone who, faced with imminent death, delighted herself in the Lord and His gifts in a way that made her death beautiful as well. She didn't live like she was dying, so much as she died the way she had lived – gratefully, graciously, all the while giving honor to God and thought for how to make every moment of the journey meaningful.

Sharon's life and death are a challenge to those of us whose lives may or may not be threatened by anything so relentless as cancer, but who are nevertheless compelled by circumstance, as she was, to answer some of life's hardest questions. Among those questions are how will we accept the path God has ordained for us, and what will we do with the time we have left. How now shall we live, always ready to die but without ever ceasing to live the abundant, full life to which we have been called?

The answers Sharon Bomgaars offers us through her journals will undoubtedly inspire and challenge many to celebrate life with all its vagaries, tragedies and triumphs alike. Her story will also remind many, as it did me, to be grateful for the lives we are given and the fact that we live each day in the shadow of God's wings – or, as Sharon would have put it, "in his feathers."

© 2006 AgapePress.  All rights reserved.  Used with permission.